Office 2013 preview

cookie1977

Apologies if it's been posted already but I couldnt find it. Anyone else tried the office 2013 customer preview yet?
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/en

I'm enjoying it. Running the x64 version on a windows 7 x64 laptop. It uses space better then 2010 did (or any previous version has)




I like in excel how menus slide in rather then obstruct views and editing.



Still playing around with it but like what I see so far.

G-Money

Which link do you use to download it? All I see is a "sign up" link and then links for dev's and IT pro's.

Is there a main link to download it from?

cookie1977

I clicked sign up, then Try Now, then logged in and downloaded

nucker

Looks good, though I can't download it because of my crappy limited internet

_Kaiser_

Installed it this morning.. everything I've thrown at it works so far, but it's a bit like the new Boards - everything is so white/light grey and washed out that it's hard at a glance to see/find anything (particularly in Outlook for example). It's also very blocky

EDIT: Oh it seems Excel now has fancy transition effects when you move between cells that seem to just slow the process down!

I personally don't think core software (Win 8 is another example) should be subject to the whims of what's currently cool.. but that's me.

G-Money

Liking it so far. I was writing something in Word and when I opened the document it offered to take me to the point where I'd left off. Pretty nifty. I also like the smooth scrolling as I type.

unkel

Does not work with Windows 8 Consumer Preview :eek:

(needs Release Preview)

Read somewhere that the license will expire 60 days after the official release of Office13. Not bad.

Blowfish

unkel wrote: »

Does not work with Windows 8 Consumer Preview :eek:

(needs Release Preview)

It's the same for Visual Studio 2012 actually. I think it's because they changed the .NET version slightly between the two.

cookie1977

I'm loving the new presenter features in Powerpoint 2013. Have always envied macs for this feature.

Fysh

cookie1977 wrote: »

I'm loving the new presenter features in Powerpoint 2013. Have always envied macs for this feature.

How much are they improved over Presentation mode in previous versions?

I'm always surprised at how many people who do regular presentations seem to be unaware of Presentation Mode - it's been present in Office since at least 2003, and barring a couple of issues relating to video-playback if you haven't set your projector screen to be your primary display it's been pretty good in my experience. (See here for info on how to enable/use it - the fact that it's only available for multi-monitor configurations probably explains its low usage)

cookie1977

I think this is much nicer. Plus it's easier for the novice to set up. Previously let's be honest it involved quite a few clicks to get it set up. This time just connect external monitor and press F5.

Capt'n Midnight

cookie1977 wrote: »

I'm loving the new presenter features in Powerpoint 2013. Have always envied macs for this feature.

How do they compare with openoffice / libreoffice impress ?

Fysh

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

How do they compare with openoffice / libreoffice impress ?

See, I'd never thought to try out Open/LibreOffice. Just did it with a presentation I had to give a while back and by god it leaves Office 2010 and earlier in the dust! I opened Impress, opened the presentation (a pptx file) and went to Slideshow (press F5), and there it was - presentation on primary display, presenter view/notes on secondary display, and a lovely intuitive UI (including a big button to switch the displays around).

Hopefully Office 2013 is equivalently easy to use - I was going to install it on a test machine but even trying to download the install media from MS seemed to result in the damn thing installing Skydrive on my main workstation, so I've avoided it thus far

I know it seems off-topic for the thread but thanks for the tip, had never realised how good Impress is. Must mention that to the folks who keep insisting that bloody Keynote is the standard for presentations...

cookie1977

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

How do they compare with openoffice / libreoffice impress ?

I'm using a windows 7 x64 laptop but for the life of me I could not get the presenter console extension installed for Open Office 3.4 Impress as it said it was only compatible up to version 3.2. Therefore I cant compare them. But I did manage to get libre office 3.5 impress presenter console working.

Overall I think the MS office 2013 setup is much easier. It detects automatically that you're connected to an external monitor and default chooses presenter mode when you press f5. Impress would not do this. I had to enable extend desktop (not clone monitors) in my graphics card properties. Then go back to presenter to make sure it now detected multiple monitors. Then when I pressed f5 it allowed me to view the presentation on one screen and the presenter console on another.

I will say I prefer MS Office 2013's implementation of this process and I think there's more options while in this mode compared with impress BUT lets be honest, Impress is 100% free and works absolutely fine and apart from some extra setup time it's very usable. Not sure if "novices" would like it though.

Pics below. Impress is on the left as you look at the pic and office 2013 is on the right. Not a lot to choose between them really.

Inscrutable

Am loving some of the features in this. You can import a pdf into word almost perfectly and make it editable. And then in Excel they have this nifty feature Flash Fill which uses machine learning to allow you to easily extract and rearrange data.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHkgJFJR5cM

Overheal

I just installed x86 (it defaulted to that and Im lazy) into Windows 8. I liked the install experience, and the way the typing looks is just... well weird, and fluid. I looked at the settings: who needs a hardware accelerated word processor??? But it is kinda cool, because the letters "slide" into existence, rather than each character suddenly "popping" into existence as we have known it since the beginning of time. Would really love to be able to edit the view options though, the whitespace around my document is annoying and bright.

Fysh

Overheal wrote: »

I just installed x86 (it defaulted to that and Im lazy) into Windows 8. I liked the install experience, and the way the typing looks is just... well weird, and fluid. I looked at the settings: who needs a hardware accelerated word processor??? But it is kinda cool, because the letters "slide" into existence, rather than each character suddenly "popping" into existence as we have known it since the beginning of time. Would really love to be able to edit the view options though, the whitespace around my document is annoying and bright.

To the best of my knowledge MS are still recommending the 32bit version, which is pretty frigging feeble on their part.

That said, I want to slap whoever thought that upping the pointless resource drain and visual candy around a productivity suite (outside, maybe, of the presentation tools in Powerpoint) was a good idea. Missing the goddamned point by a country mile. :mad:

cookie1977

I need to use 32 bit to keep compatibility with some of my add-ons including endnote

Overheal

Fysh wrote: »

To the best of my knowledge MS are still recommending the 32bit version, which is pretty frigging feeble on their part.

That said, I want to slap whoever thought that upping the pointless resource drain and visual candy around a productivity suite (outside, maybe, of the presentation tools in Powerpoint) was a good idea. Missing the goddamned point by a country mile. :mad:

Well, you can always disable the hardware acceleration. My workstation is pretty overkill as it is though, and I devote all my unused system resources to protein-folding simulations that help disease research. I'm not really in want of shaving a resource here and there.

Fysh

Overheal wrote: »

Well, you can always disable the hardware acceleration. My workstation is pretty overkill as it is though, and I devote all my unused system resources to protein-folding simulations that help disease research. I'm not really in want of shaving a resource here and there.

It's not that I don't have the resources, it's that I think it's a bloody stupid area to dedicate any hardware acceleration towards. If all it provides is eye-candy that's entirely irrelevant to the work process for which the software is designed, it's bloody stupid and I'm disappointed MS haven't learned this lesson after what they did with Vista RTM.

Overheal

Eye candy or eye strain reduction